1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a surgical medical device. More specifically, the present invention relates to a device for surgical ligation during a surgery.
2. Description of Related Art
Ligation is a necessary procedure during a surgery. It is an important step for suturing and for stopping bleeding. Ligation quality and speed may have a great influence on operation time and post-operational healing. If the ligation quality is not good enough, knots made during ligation may loosen and slide. Wounds may then crack and bleed. The suffering and risk of patients will then be increased.
In the past, doctors usually make knots simply by hand (“hand-knotting method”). However, this method has disadvantages, such as increasing operation time and affecting the smooth flow of surgery. With advances in surgical techniques, these disadvantages become bigger issues. For example, the hand-knotting method cannot be used for minimally invasive surgery. To overcome this problem, a variety of auxiliary devices for ligation are developed to be used in such surgery. Auxiliary devices for ligation not only save time for stitching and threading, but can also be regarded as an extension of a surgical thread or an extension of a hand when the surgical thread is too short or the space is too narrow to knot. Hence, in such situation, the advantages of such auxiliary devices for ligation become very noticeable.
Currently, auxiliary devices for ligation have been widely used in surgeries. For example, during an endoscopic surgery, a laser scalpel or a harmonic scalpel is usually used for cutting or ligation. By using auxiliary devices for ligation, ligation can be completed faster than just by hands. Consequently, operation time can be shortened. However, laser scalpels are only better at stopping bleeding of small-diameter vessels. Although bipolar electrocautery scalpels are capable of stopping bleeding of large-diameter vessels, but they may also cause heat damage to surrounding tissues. Even though a subsequently improved device, named “Tissue Coagulation Instrument LigaSure™ System”, can effectively reduce heat damage to surrounding tissues, the LigaSure™ system is still incapable of ligating large-diameter vessels. In addition, during a thoracoscopic surgery, titanium alloy clips or staplers are used to clamp or seal blood vessels-containing tissues. However, titanium alloy clips or staplers are foreign substances that cannot be absorbed by human body and will be retained in human body after surgery.
Hence, as mentioned above, high-energy devices, such as laser scalpels or harmonic scalpels, and stapling devices can only be used at specific surgical sites. In addition, each of these devices has some disadvantages that need to be overcame. In contrast, if a ligation is done by suturing, there is no need to purchase additional expensive devices or to learn how to use such devices. In addition, compared with the high-energy devices for ligation, suturing can easily ligate large size vessels. Moreover, accidents that happened when high-energy devices are used will not happen during suturing. Furthermore, sutures that can be absorbed by human body have been developed in recent years. Hence, the application of suturing is wider compared to that of high-energy devices or stapling devices.
Although, several teams have developed auxiliary devices for ligation by suturing; however, so far, such auxiliary devices for ligation still require the use of both hands to complete ligation. Thus, in practical situations, such devices may still affect the smooth flow of a surgery. Therefore, there is a need to develop a surgical ligation device that can overcome the aforementioned drawbacks of known auxiliary devices for ligation so that physicians can perform tubular tissue ligation in a much quicker and simpler manner.